


This way up

by wolfsan11



Series: Sheith Week Unlimited 2017 [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Day 6: Dalliance, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, More like NOT a dalliance, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Sheith Week Unlimited 2017, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 13:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10022042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfsan11/pseuds/wolfsan11
Summary: "I would never command someone so inexperienced to go on a mission so dangerous."In which Kolivan is right and the plan goes horribly wrong.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, I have terrible timing, as I've been told :))  
> Please enjoy

Shiro doesn’t know what to attribute it to.

Maybe it’s the grace of some primordial being who has finally deigned to bless them (rather unlikely). Maybe it’s efficient planning on their part (definitely not). Or maybe it’s pure, dumb luck (in which case, they need more of it, please and thank you).

Yet somehow, incredibly, the plan is working, each phase lining up beautifully: One, Zarkon on the trail of the Black Lion, caught in his obsessive pursuit to obtain her. Two, the Teleduv concealed in the space-time fold, with Slav fighting to keep the gravity generator online. And three, Keith safely on-board Zarkon’s Central Command Ship, ready to take out the main systems for Kolivan to follow through with the virus.

Even with all the chances they’ve had to take and the obstacles in their way, it’s _working_. They’re nearing the hopeful conclusion of taking down Zarkon permanently.

The Black Lion hurtles through a cluster of Galran ships, purple-grey carnage left in her wake. It’s simple destruction, machinery crumpling under the strength of her teeth and claws.

Shiro lets the drones surround him, weaves and dives through the gaps they leave, luring them deeper into his trap. Adrenaline and a glowing exhilaration drive him forward as Black moves at his slightest touch, in sync with his every move. For a brief moment, he’s reminded of why he’d become a pilot in the first place, why he’d ever joined the Garrison.

Of course, flying with Black is ten times better than almost anything the Garrison had offered him.

With the thrill bubbling up inside him, he almost can’t bear to think ahead, think about how much they’re risking on this fatalistic mission. But then, options tended to be limited when amidst a war that had passed the tipping point _centuries_ ago.

It’s a one-time, hit-or-miss opportunity, and right now, success is the only option he can afford to believe in.

With a few rapid swipes of Black’s jaw blades, Shiro moves through the ranks of drones, systematically demolishing them, like a cat batting at a grounded bird. Reinforcements would arrive soon, but he’s more concerned about the actual plan. Namely, Zarkon’s main ship is still not in the Teleduv’s area of effect (not enough for his comfort at least), and he intends to fix that.

In the limited gap of time he has before the next wave of drones arrive, he charts out a course to take Black around the ship, bait Zarkon in without getting himself caught.

And there, right there, is when he hears it.

The click in his helmet as someone hails him though the comms, followed by a short silence. Then, Keith, quiet and shaky: “Shiro?”

The tone puts a pause to his thoughts, a strange itch under his skin.

“Keith? Everything alright?” he queries. He lets out a grunt as laser fire hits his flank, veers Black around to slice apart the fresh unit of Galran ships that arrive to meet him. It’s like there’s no end to them, but he and Black are only getting started.

“Shiro,” Keith says again, plaintively, and something inside Shiro catches against his insides, seizing his throat. “Shiro, I messed up.”

Fear pushes to the forefront of his mind, jarring, stark and strangling.  An uninvited image slips into his awareness, a reminder, of a whimpering prisoner against the dank walls of a cell, of a roaring crowd, of stinging pain and terror echoed tenfold over, of rending flesh apart until his hands are soaked re-

Shiro lurches away from the memories with a near silent gasp. Black rumbles, nudges at him with concern; it’s nowhere near enough to soothe the sudden alarm that holds him hostage. He sucks air in through clenched teeth, kicks at himself for losing control.

So much for primordial beings and unbelievable luck.

“W-what’s going on, Keith?” he asks with forced calm, willing strength into his words, maybe willing strength into Keith.

He hears Keith inhale, stuttered, almost panicky. The moment stretches a few seconds before Keith speaks.

“I…I found Thace. Well, he found me, kind of. But he’s dead now.”

Shiro closes his eyes for a moment, for as long as he can afford without losing himself again. Black fights in his lapse anyway, crushing more drones in her powerful jaws and lashing her tail at a line of them until they explode, a splash of brilliant white on the inside of his eyelids.

All his focus whittles down to Keith’s voice.

He knows Keith has seen death, up close and terrifying and personal, much too recent even. He also knows that Thace’s death is not why Keith sounds a brief edge away from full-blown distress.

Keith starts speaking again and Shiro lets his eyes flutter open, the darkness of the debris-filled void filling his sight as he listens.

“I-I tried the codes to shut down the systems but they didn’t work, which is about when Thace suddenly showed up, but then we were attacked by the Druids,” Keith’s words tumble out hasty and slurred, like he can’t get them out fast enough. “And they were saying something about changing the code when they anticipated Thace’s betrayal and then one of them got through my defense and it managed to injure Thace and h-he was already so weak a-and now I don’t have any _time_ -“

“Hey. Hey! Keith!”

Keith stops speaking with obvious effort, panting hard as though he’s been running. It rubs at Shiro, uncomfortable and alien on skin that feels stretched too tight. The last time he’d heard Keith sound so unravelled was during the trials, at the Blade of Marmora’s base.

“Hey, listen to me. You’re alright, Keith,” he says firmly, “Just tell me you’re out of there. Did the Druids find you again?”

Shiro can hear Keith’s breath hitch as he lets it out, slow and measured.

“I’m…I’m still in the central hub. I’m still here.”

An unsettling cold seeps into Shiro’s bones. _‘Why was he…'_

“Keith? Tell me you’re not hurt.” It comes out terser than he intends it to be, but he can’t help it.

Keith doesn’t respond immediately, and Shiro has to fight against the pulse of dread that threatens to smother the very air from his lungs.

“ _Keith.”_

“I’m not hurt,” comes the answer, eerily bland, but truthful.

Keith wouldn’t lie to him. He knows that much. (But he has lied to him before about being alright, hasn't he?)

Shiro shudders, clenching his fingers over his Lion’s controls. His heart jams into his ribs, hard and loud, and somehow, he can’t find any relief in the knowledge that Keith is unhurt. There’s still something off-

“I’m not hurt,” comes Keith’s voice again, and this time it’s the opposite, not bland but despairing, filled with all the emotion that Shiro, for once, does not want to hear. Keith pauses again before he continues.

“There’s this weird energy source connected to the systems and Thace…he set it off right before he died. He overloaded it...and turned the room into a bomb.”

The sounds around him are stifled all at once like there’s static in his brain, a high-pitch ringing in his ears.

Shiro’s sure he heard wrong. Just for a second, he _prays_ he heard wrong.

“Shit. _Shit_. How much time-”

“I don’t know. Soon? A couple of minutes at most.”

Shiro falls back against his seat, pressing his spine into the cushioned back.

 _‘Of course. Of course this would happen_ ,’ he thinks, numbness creeping over him.

Because why should anything be easy when it comes to him and Keith, why should they ever get a break from the madness that’s pushed them apart, time and time again?

Every time he thinks they’re getting back to the dynamic that has swelled between them since the Garrison, every time he thinks _‘maybe’_ and _‘yes, exactly this’_ …

He doesn’t let himself linger any longer. He scrabbles to pull himself together, pulls at Black and guns her towards Zarkon’s ship.

“Get out of there,” he barks, harsh and demanding, “Keith, do you hear me, get out-“

“I can’t.”

“What? What do you _mean_ you can’t?” Shiro’s practically indignant in his disbelief. What could possibly keep Keith from leaving that cursed ship?

“I mean, _I physically can’t get out_ ,” Keith insists, and the wild thought strikes Shiro that Keith had to be lying in some bid to...to…to what?

Nothing. Because Keith doesn’t lie, not to him. Never about something like this...right?

“I can’t get out,” Keith repeats, “There were Galran sentries coming for us, I had to block off the doorway, and there isn’t another way out. There’s some kind of system of… _vents_ down here, I think. But I’m not really sure. I don’t know where they go.”

Shiro runs a hand roughly through his hair, frustration warring with his need to appear composed. But then, this is Keith; there are no appearances to maintain here when Keith can see clear through to his anxiety.

“So what does it matter where they go, just try them!”

Keith huffs through the line, soft and sad.

“I can’t do that.”

The fear cranks up another notch at the gentle way he says it, like Keith’s trying to let him down easy…like Keith was going to-

“Wha-you- _why_ ,” his words slip from his mouth without order and he struggles to put them together coherently but there’s no time, _there’s no time-_

“Why the _fuck_ not?” Shiro shouts, because he needs Keith to keep talking, needs to hear him, needs to know he’s not too late.

He throws his weight into the controls, forces all his fear into a tight funnel and pours it into his flying. Black is with him every step of the way, barrelling into the Galran ships and dodging the rest, blasting her way to the shortest path possible, to where Keith’s cloaked pod had entered Zarkon’s ship.

Then Keith chuckles, and it’s like a slap in the face, humourless and completely out of place.

“I have to make sure no one gets in, make sure the overload works out unhindered. I have to stay.”

Black reaches the entry point where Keith had gone in, the one Kolivan had highlighted in the blueprints, but Shiro’s stuck there, wheezing, reeling, mentally decrying what Keith is suggesting.

“No. Keith, no. I’m right outside, just get out of there, we can come back anoth-”

“You said it yourself, Shiro, this is the one shot we’ve got.”

Shiro dearly longs to strangle him. Why couldn’t Keith be that rebellious little shit from the Garrison again, why was he listening to him now of all times? (Because this _is_ Keith, being rebellious, all over again.)

“This isn’t what I meant by-”

“No, it’s _exactly_ what you meant. It’s what _all_ of us meant when we agreed to this plan.”

And Shiro thinks frantically, _‘Yes, we did, but not like this. Not you, oh god, not you, not like this, not without me too.’_

He imagines Keith in a dark purple room, imagines him surrounded by the rapidly cooling corpses of Thace and the Druids, imagines him backing away from the blocked doorway and settling on this _stupid_ , _goddamn plan_ to put his body there beside them; it drags a ragged sob from his throat.

“Don’t. Keith, don’t do this, I won’t forgive you if you do this-“

“You have to,” Keith pleads, tight and desperate. “Please. I can’t stand it if…Please. Just tell me you’ll be okay, tell me-”

“Why are you even- I am _not_ going to be okay-”

“ _Shiro, please_.”

An uncommon rage fills him, a balloon of anger and horrifying grief, expanding in his chest until it's on the brink to bursting.

“ _HOW_ am I supposed to be _okay with this,_ how am I going to-No. No, I’m coming to get you, I’m com-”

He has to cut himself off then, and direct Black forward with single-minded intent. His Lion shreds the overlaying hull with one giant paw, claws sinking in with ease, screech of metal against metal. He doesn’t dare use her lasers though, because what if he hits Keith, what if he brings the whole thing down on his head?

“Shiro…Shiro, stop,” Keith sighs, tinny through the speakers.

Shiro grasps at his helmet like it’ll bring him any closer to Keith, bring him any closer to reaching him.

“Keith, please, get out of there. Let me _save_ you!”

There’s a rustle as Keith shifts, breathes out, quick and trembling.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, it’s too late already. I wish… wish I could have seen you one last time,” Keith whispers, and then there’s a sudden crackle through the comms as something explodes on Keith’s end. Shiro _screams_.

_‘No! No no no he’s gone? No he can’t be go-‘_

Keith’s voice filters through the roar of noise filling his ears, less audible but clear, and so, so beautiful.

“The sentries blasted their way in through the blockade,” Keith yells over the sound of plasma guns firing. Shiro can’t even sag back in relief, can’t bring himself to move as tears slip down his face. It’s like his will is broken, leaving him drained.

 _‘It’s too fast. This is too fast, you can’t, not like this,’_ runs through his head, a sickly prayer that no one can hear, but then he realizes he’s saying it out loud, fevered and babbling, his cheeks painted wet with sorrow.

Keith makes an odd sound, raspy and low.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. Shiro lets his head drop into his hands, feels the urge to shout at Keith for apologising, for thinking he needs to apologise at all, but now the words won’t come out at all. “Tell the others?”

Shiro wants to refuse, petulant and anguished and apologetic all at once.

“Shiro? Ar-are you still there?”

But he can’t. He can’t do that to Keith.

He takes a moment to absorb that voice, listens to the scratchy yet mellowed tone, the fear and panic and determination and strength, and he thinks, _‘This the last time you’ll hear him say your name.’_

“ _Shiro_?”

“I will,” he breathes out, fervent, honest, because this is his last chance, and he’ll do anything for Keith. He aches, a bruising pain washing over him, and he wishes suddenly he’d done everything Keith had ever asked of him, had let him have his way every time because now he’ll never-

“Good,” Keith says faintly.

Shiro stops thinking, and listens.

“You have to kick Zarkon’s unroyal ass for me, alright? T-tell Allura to take Red. I think…I think we’re similar enough that Red will have her. You can still do this without me,” Keith says, a hint of a strained smile in his voice, and Shiro can picture it, self-deprecating and small, deserving so much more.

A hard pressure builds in his throat, an agonising ball of fire that steals his air.

He doesn’t want to do this without him.

There’s a high whine over the comms, intensifying with every second, audible even over the din of battle. Shiro trembles as it grows louder, knows what it means.

And then-

Soft and sweet and winded, like it was punched out from Keith: “I love you.”

It jolts Shiro out from his daze, pushes him straight over into shock, and he’s left gasping.

“Kei-”

“You don’t have to listen to this.”

The comms cut out, and like clockwork, Shiro finds his words returned.

“Wha- no! No, wait, _wait_ , _KEITH WAIT_!”

There is no response, only the empty silence of his own helmet.

Shiro claps a hand over his mouth, and squeezes his eyes shut, digs a fist against his chest.

“Black…save him,” he begs feebly, needing something, some reassurance that this isn’t it. That this isn’t how it ends for them.

He feels the presence of Black envelop him, dark and all encompassing, warm and _useless_ , as she backs away from the ship, ignoring his command.

The devastating realization crashes into him then, and he snaps his eyes open just as a pinpoint of light appears at the bottom of that entry door, the place where he’d seen Keith to safety (to his last breathe).

The light shines bright and beautiful and dangerous (like Keith) and he watches as the main ship shakes in the explosion, a terrible concussive sound that rattles him where he sits (he’d thought only Keith could do that); he watches the door cave outwards, wrenched from its frame and flung into space with the force of the blast.

He watches as his world crumbles into shrapnel, watches as the one person he’d held important to his very being evaporates before his eyes. A drowning cold presses in on him, and he thinks he’s screaming again, throat tearing, his hands coming up to rip at his face.

Black pulls away rapidly, pulls him away to safety, and Shiro reaches out to the cloud of red-orange-white, helpless, his final sight of Keith’s resting place.

Distantly, there’s the sound of a shattered roar as the Red Lion appears suddenly at his side, lunges at the ship, braying and miserable and too late to save her Paladin.

And all he can think is: ‘I didn’t say it back’.

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY FRIGGING BIRTHDAY SHIRO  
> In all honesty though, I DIDN'T MEAN TO. Not on this date anyway.  
> I know this isn't entirely a new concept (at all) but I had to write it out all the same. Hope you liked it...in a manner of speaking :D


End file.
